In the scholarly publishing world, the often used phrase "Publish
or Perish" has been transformed into "Will Publishers
Perish?". "Re-evaluate," "refocus," "realign," "reorganize," "reallocate
resources," and "retool" are the key
words of every business discussion. To further increase the challenge,
those of us labeled "commercial" publishers are
expected to accomplish this re-engineering feat while generating
revenue and profits that will keep the shareholders and the Wall
Street analysts happy.
Technology is forcing publishers to completely transform every
aspect of the business. Raw data are prepared, copyedited, tagged
with SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) coding that defines
the appearance of the document, and electronically submitted to
compositors. Computer-to-plate printing technology has replaced
film. Page proofs are transmitted and corrected via PDF (portable
document format) files. Accounting systems are being retooled to
track sales of articles, chapters, and pages rather than those of
entire books or journals. Subscriber and buyer lists are being converted
into true customer databases that will enable one-to-one
marketing and customized content delivery. The only thing that isn’t
changing is the author-publisher interface, where the human
element is still key.
Information Wants to be Free
We frequently hear that information should be free on the Internet.
Needless to say, this belief threatens those of us who believe that,
as publishers, we add value to the information products we produce
and then sell to recoup our investment. This belief also has a potential
impact on the authors and editors who work with us and are paid
for their efforts. Lastly, it could affect the societies and academies
that partner with us to publish their journals. These organizations
not only expect a sizable return from the sale of their intellectual
property; they expect that return to be guaranteed to protect them
from any risk in the new business environment.
In reality, the age-old production triangle of time,
quality, and cost does not change across media. To produce a timely,
peer-reviewed, high-quality publication—whether
the container is paper or digital—still demands attention
to the process and, therefore, a price that reflects the cost of
the process. New costs are involved as well: significant up-front
investments in technology and ongoing costs that touch areas of
the business not normally perceived, such as service and support. "Customer
service" has become "technology support." The
group that once was expected simply to answer the phone and take
an order now must be able to understand the behavior or particular
versions of browsers with particular files; explain download performance;
troubleshoot broken links; deal with authentication failures; and
provide file-access permissions. And, of course, a typical
online user has an expectation that this service will be available
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The hue and cry for free information has recently been taken
up by the National Institutes of Health with their PubMed Central
project, giving free online access to biomedical research. The Scholarly
Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), organized to
transform the system of scholarly communication, will underwrite
the launch of journals aimed at competing with any existing journals
that SPARC has deemed to be too expensive. And NEAR (National Electronic
Article Repository) would mandate, by federal law, by funding agency
stipulation, or by contractual agreement with university employees,
that after ninety days all journal articles be made freely available
on the web, regardless of where they were originally published.
Free by Default
The electronic availability of content has brought about the
dominant new business model—licensing. We license our content
to librarians and other institutions, who then provide it free to
their patrons. On the surface this does not appear to be much different
from what libraries have always done. But look more closely and
you will see that patrons don’t have to be located physically
in the library. Electronic information can be accessed from multiple
desktops within an entire institution. Most libraries also now allow
remote access from other buildings, off-campus offices
or clinics and homes. This availability helps to support the erroneous
belief, particularly among younger physicians, that information
is indeed free and should be provided as a public good.
The seemingly obvious answer to this conundrum is for publishers
to charge the libraries more for this access. But as we all know,
library funding is not growing. What has become known as "the
serials crisis" affects all institutional budgets, and
publishers struggle to maintain revenues as the number of subscribers declines.
New Channels of Distribution
As print publishers, we have always worked closely with wholesalers
to deliver our books to the bookstores, with bookstores to sell
our books to individuals, and with agents to distribute our journals
to libraries. In the world of electronic licensing, our distribution
channels are much different, the deals we make are much more complex,
and there are no tools to measure the impact of the sales. Our customers
can be one institution, a consortium of institutions or hospitals,
or an entire country. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, the
licenses we are negotiating involve global access.
Early on, in Internet time, the dot.coms came knocking on our
door, wanting to partner with us. None of them stayed once they
discovered that the information wasn’t free. Those dot.coms
that still exist have now come calling again and are much more willing
to discuss business arrangements that value the content that is
in such demand.
The Importance of Brand
Users and librarians increasingly view titles—books
and journals—as merely part of hyperlinked content databases.
An individual electronic journal or book will not provide enough
value. The greatest value will be found in a thoroughly indexed
and interlinked collection of relevant information, allowing the
user to move rapidly through the entire collection for fast access
and retrieval.
In the world of the Internet, branding is crucial given the mass
of undifferentiated information, misinformation, and disinformation
that is available. Users and librarians still look for content from
professional and scholarly publishers. They know that the publication
process affords the quality assurance they need and demand. A published
journal or book is not just a collection of printed pages. It is
a collection of information that has been authenticated by knowledgeable
people.
As information proliferates on the Internet, physicians will
welcome the many new kinds of communication, exchange, and access
made available to them. At the same time, we believe that they will
continue to rely on the sources they know and trust. The brand or "authority" is
what raises scientific and medical information above the level of
a commodity.
The Information Consumer
Our customers are seldom referred to as "readers." They
are users of information who want immediate answers to their questions.
The information user does not want to peruse pages of information
that will lead to a thoughtful decision-making process. He or she
wants to query the database (that somehow magically
exists) and find the answer to a specific question, whether that
question concerns a research issue, a critical dosage amount, or
the proper course of chemotherapy for a patient with cancer. Lastly,
the information user expects that the query and answer will be delivered
via a desktop, a laptop, or a Palm Pilot. And, of course, it should
not require the user to pay a fee directly.
The Price of Advertising
Advertising revenue is a major component of successful journal
publishing. So far, advertisers still believe that the printed page
will guarantee much more exposure. They understand circulation numbers
and want to put their ads in the journals that will go to the most
people. The number of eyes on the page is the measurement of worth.
Internet advertising is proving to be a shaky revenue proposition
so far. What web advertising we have sold to date has been in the
form of banner placements that are allowed to appear randomly throughout
the journal content. So far, no journal has allowed placement of
an ad within the text, but one of our major society journals permits
banner advertising at the top of each page, and that advertisement
will print if the user downloads the article.
As print circulation declines because of electronic delivery,
the advertisers are faced with changing their evaluation tools—from
eyes on the page to some other measurement of exposure. The number
of hits per page has become passé; advertisers want direct
access to and specific information about the individual who is using
the content. The thorny issue of advertising subsidies for journals
becomes even more complex when viewed in light of that of privacy
for online consumers.